As i was watching the game last night, it was obvious that the Panthers are loaded and built for the playoffs. This is no suprise as their dismal record clearly falls at the feet of the coaching staff.

"After 16 games it was clear that our team needed a change in philosophy and direction," general manager Dale Tallon said Friday in a statement. "We have not met the expectations that we set forth at training camp and it is my responsibility to make the necessary changes to ensure that our club performs at its maximum potential."

Is this guy serious? I wonder what expectations he had, because I now seriously question his ability to judge talent.

"After 16 games it was clear that our team needed a change in philosophy and direction," general manager Dale Tallon said Friday in a statement. "We have not met the expectations that we set forth at training camp and it is my responsibility to make the necessary changes to ensure that our club performs at its maximum potential."

Is this guy serious? I wonder what expectations he had, because I now seriously question his ability to judge talent.

"After 16 games it was clear that our team needed a change in philosophy and direction," general manager Dale Tallon said Friday in a statement. "We have not met the expectations that we set forth at training camp and it is my responsibility to make the necessary changes to ensure that our club performs at its maximum potential."

Is this guy serious? I wonder what expectations he had, because I now seriously question his ability to judge talent.

Uh, losing to the Bruins was the last straw Dale?

For some reason, I am imaging Tallon sitting by the pool with his tablet typing up this press release...about a week ago. "After [fill in #] games it was clear..."

"After 16 games it was clear that our team needed a change in philosophy and direction," general manager Dale Tallon said Friday in a statement. "We have not met the expectations that we set forth at training camp and it is my responsibility to make the necessary changes to ensure that our club performs at its maximum potential."

Is this guy serious? I wonder what expectations he had, because I now seriously question his ability to judge talent.

He did a fine Job judging talent in Chicago. TSN analysts said during the draft that florida were deep with the best prospects . Personally I think dineen should have stuck longer .

He builds a 3rd rate roster with QMJHL level talent at goalie and defense...and he can't believe Dineen and staff couldn't coach them into contention. He must have compromising pictures of Vin Viola or something.

"After 16 games it was clear that our team needed a change in philosophy and direction," general manager Dale Tallon said Friday in a statement. "We have not met the expectations that we set forth at training camp and it is my responsibility to make the necessary changes to ensure that our club performs at its maximum potential."

Is this guy serious? I wonder what expectations he had, because I now seriously question his ability to judge talent.

He did a fine Job judging talent in Chicago. TSN analysts said during the draft that florida were deep with the best prospects . Personally I think dineen should have stuck longer .

I'm aware of that, but what kind of expectations can one have looking at this roster?

"Havlat, who was no longer a Blackhawk, criticized the team's management and defended Tallon. He stated, "Every single player on that team is with Dale. I still talk to the guys all the time, hockey players know a phony when they see one."

He specifically berated John McDonough, the team's president, commenting "McDonough couldn't stand that Dale was so successful and getting the credit for building the Hawks from a last place team to making the Conference Finals in 3 short years."

Depends on who you ask. Tallon did join the Blackhawks in 1998 as director of player personnel. I don't know if there is evidence that Tallon didn't advise or did when it came too drafting Seabrook or Keith.

His most recent history- Not sending out qualifying offers to all his Blackhawk free agents in the summer of 2010 was idiotic and not being able to keep his recent Panther playoff team intact is quite awful.

PC didn't have to finish last or close to it to build his team but Dale did more than once. What Tallon is doing now is just plain terrible, using Dineen as a scapegoat shows how Dale just isn't thinking straight.

The credit Tallon gets for Chicago is a joke. Won the lottery in order to pick Kane. No lottery win and they would have had a choice between Alzner, Gagner and Voracek. Maybe Hamill, saving Boston from taking him and maybe landing Couture in Black and Gold? Had multiple years of multiple second and third round picks and landed a few bottom half of the roster players - nothing that would suggest brilliant talent evalutation or development. First draft, he took Skille seventh overall - Skille's time with Chicago, before being dealt, is almost an exact parallel to Caron's time in Boston, and most people are ready to run Caron out of Boston on a rail - Deztrak?

Tallon was A/GM under Pulford when, despite some success in the draft, there were also huge misses like taking Barker 3rd overall, and generally bad team-building that caused them to plummet to the position where they drafted 3, 7, 3, 1, 11 over five years. He's the one who made them choke on Khabibulin's salary, then went back to the well of stupid for Huet. That's $12.4M annually when the Cap was in the $56M range for two goalies who Chicago had to ditch before winning the Cup with Niemi, a goalie then ditched for Cap reasons who went on to earn a Vezina nomination. Tallon had no idea Crawford would be able to take the reins all teh way to a Cup years after he let Niemi go, and you could argue that Chicago might have won more in the interim if they'd have had better goaltending when Crawford was learning the ropes.

People around here believe the playoff team a couple of years ago (18 OTL points, playoff berth due to first place in a pitiful division where Ovechkin's Caps, the Hurricanes and the Lightning all tanked) is the real team, last year's team finished last because of key injuries and this year's team has/had a terrible coach.

The truth is that it's not a good team. Goc and Bjugstad are the top faceoff guys. There are no first line players. There is no #1 defenseman (three zone shutdown guy). There is no grit up front at all outside of the skating clown.

Tallon left the Hawks office to go into broadcasting in 2002-03. He had nothing to do with probably the best draft the Hawks have had in a long time: Seabrook R1, Crawford R2, Byfuglien R3. The previous year was the best draft he would have had any influence over - Babchuk, Keith, Wizniewski, and Adam Burish. They had both 10 and 11 in 2000 and missed on both players, though, to be fair, 2000 was uninspiring with the most interesting players outside the top 6 being steady, tough defensemen like Orpik and Volchenkov.

The Hawks missed the playoffs for 9 out of 10 years - all but one year with Tallon involved. GENIUS!

Florida had the NHL's worst record last year. The murderer's row they brought in to correct that problem includes Brad Boyes (who would be in Europe if the Panthers hadn't signed him), Jesse Winchester, a kid who has been 18 for two months, Scott Gomez, Tom Gilbert, Matt Gilroy, and Ryan Whitney. Last year, their team save % was something like .890 and Dale the fail would have done nothing to upgrade his goaltending if he hadn't signed Tim Thomas at the 11th hour. This is the same GM who thought Kovalev and Mueller - two guys with true carpetbagger reps - would make his team better last year.